[haertig]

If I had read Shift first, I would never have read Wool. Shift wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as Wool. Reading Wool first, I gladly moved on to Shift, and then Dust (publication order). Wool is still my favorite of the trio. But if I had started with Shift, Wool and Dust would never have been read. I think the main thing that kept me reading Shift and not abandoning it, was the occasional "Ah ha!" moment where I realized how something being told related to Wool.

I think reading series in timeline order (vs. publication order) is a concept that was developed by engineers (of which, I happen to be one). Everything neat and tidy and ordered chronologically. But I don't necessarily like that. Can you imagine if Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" had its story re-arranged chronologically by engineers? That would have ruined the book. I like the revelations of later finding out how something came about after you've read about it initially, wondering at the time what was going on. This is fun when the author does it right.